The line between cosmetics and skin care has disappeared, due to some dual-faceted products.
Makeup is no longer just coloring between the lines. It is erasing them.
Some beauty brands are bolstering color cosmetics with anti-aging ingredients said to firm eyelids, smooth lip lines or fight wrinkle-causing free radicals.
Makeup brands, including Laura Mercier, Global Goddess and DuWop, are marrying their cosmetics with skin care, while treatment brands, such as La Prairie and Orlane, have recently adapted their expertise to makeup.
“This is certainly a growing and important category for the future,” said Ed Burstell, senior vice president and general merchandise manager of beauty, jewelry and accessories of New York-based Bergdorf Goodman department store, referring to makeup imbibed with skin care.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” said Shalini Vadhera, founder and chief executive officer of New York-based Global Goddess, which recently introduced I-Divine eye shadow billed to firm the eye area (see sidebar). “Why not get double duty out of your makeup?”
For beauty executives, mixing care with color makes practical sense.
“I love makeup that has a purpose,” said Vadhera.
Agreed Cristina Bartolucci, co-founder of DuWop, “We thought since you apply eye shadow daily—the same way as skin care—if you could integrate color and treatment into that daily application, then why not?”
From a marketing standpoint, the newfangled products can lure a wider consumer base. Executives say color cosmetics with skin-care benefits are attractive to both older customers wishing to mask the signs of aging and younger women looking to prevent wrinkles while playing with makeup.
At La Prairie, for example, its recently revamped The Face of Luxury makeup collection billed to have anti-aging properties (see sidebar) has been a hit with the brand’s traditional skin-care clientele but also attracted new women seeking upscale color-cosmetics, according to Nadia Miller, the company’s vice president of development.
“These products not only look and feel luxurious on the skin, but a lot of customers like to be seen using them,” she claimed. “We have taken a lot of the details from skin care into making every single makeup product anti-aging and protective while doing everything color should do.”
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Generally priced in the £25 (e38/$49) to £98 range, these items come in at the top-end of the market.
While still niche, the makeup-cum-skin-care products can ring up strong sales. Global Goddess’ six eye shadows and other anti-aging makeup items, for instance, have generated between $300,000 and $400,000 in wholesale sales since the brand’s founding in May 2006, according to industry sources.
Anti-aging makeup certainly shows promise, given that creams fighting wrinkles make up the fastest-growing category in face care. In 2005, for example, U.S. sales of anti-aging treatment increased 18% to $437 million year-on-year, according to London-based tracking firm Mintel International.
“Plain old eye shadow isn’t working any more,” said Bartolucci, who added, however, that such product with skin-care and color-cosmetics claims “is what the customer wants.”
Among recent multitaskers are: